On Hill, video game violence not in play

The industry's investment in making friends in Washington seems to be paying off. | AP Photo

And the manpower and money the industry — which grosses $21 billion in the United States and is approaching $80 billion in sales worldwide — has invested inside the Beltway since the height of the video game culture wars in 2007 hasn’t hurt. During the mid-2000s, a number of bills to limit access to violent video games were introduced at the federal and state levels.

Video game companies through their trade association the Entertainment Software Association have spent millions of dollars to infiltrate Capitol Hill, building up their team by adding key players like CEO Mike Gallagher and Democratic lobbyist Erik Huey. It has been an ongoing effort to win allies, blunt critics and try to move beyond just playing defense on violent video games, which they say account for 9 percent of the industry’s entire market share.

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“Over time, the more that lawmakers understand the depth and the breadth of this industry, the less they rush to judgment on blaming an industry like ours for unrelated shootings,” Huey said. “When you look at morale panics over time from comic books, to Elvis’s hips, to Marilyn Manson, to Ozzy Osbourne, I think when they are viewed through the lens of history, people want to avoid making those kinds of mistakes in current time.”

But the shift hasn’t just been organic.

ESA has more than doubled its lobbying spending over the past six years. The trade association spent nearly $2.6 million on lobbying during the first half of this year with lobbying firms like Monument Policy Group, The Smith-Free Group and Franklin Square Group on retainer. After the Newtown shootings, ESA brought on prominent Democratic lobbying firm Elmendorf Ryan and Polaris Government Relations when it was facing an onslaught of criticism from gun-rights groups and was pulled into meetings with Biden, who was leading the Obama administration’s gun control effort, and into many offices on the Hill with questions from lawmakers.

Huey said ESA doesn’t want this to be a guns versus gaming industry debate.

“Any effort to turn this into a battle of First Amendment versus Second Amendment is not of interest to us. The Bill of Rights is not a cafeteria plan. You can’t plan which rights you want the government to enforce and which ones they don’t,” Huey said.

Unlike most industries where companies have their own in-house lobbying operations, nearly all of gaming companies have never had a Washington office, shuttered the offices in the mid-2000s or, if they are larger companies with multiple units, still rely heavily on the trade group to represent their interests inside the Beltway. ESA represents all major gaming companies from Nintendo of America to Microsoft , and studios from Warner Bros. to Disney Interactive Studios.

The trade association’s effort has included everything from traditional shoe leather lobbying to encouraging the formation in 2011 of the E-TECH Caucus, which now boasts 50 members. The trade group also regularly hosts events showcasing recently released games. Last week, for instance, ESA, Electronic Arts and the National Football League invited lawmakers, staff and downtowners to the Capitol Hill bar Hawk ‘n’ Dove for a Back to Football tailgate party to celebrate the release of the most recent release of Madden NFL 25. The association also features the Just Dance video game at its annual D.C. holiday party.

Huey dismissed the notion that the industry is shying away from its “mature”-rated content like Grand Theft Auto.

“This is the ‘Breaking Bad’ of video games. It’s the ‘Sopranos’ of video games, and I don’t know anybody is saying ‘Breaking Bad’ is causing more people to become meth dealers in the country,” Huey said. “Grand Theft Auto is a franchise, a storied revered franchise that is rated ‘M’ for adults that has been around for a long time, and it’s sold around the world. This gun violence epidemic we have in this country is unique to America, so clearly there must be causal factors at play and it’s not just the video games.”